The Nexus Ascendancy
by The Ascended Ancient
Summary: AU from the end of the One Year War onward. When a desperate Zeon commander launches an attack on Earth in the final days of the War, a daring military commander and a powerful rookie pilot are all that stand between the Federation and disaster.
1. Olympic Base

_**Mobile Suit Gundam 0084**_

_**The Nexus Ascendancy**_

**Written By: The Ascended Ancient**

**Disclaimer: Well, a lot of the material is the property of the people who created Mobile Suit Gundam, but some of it is mine. Stealing either from this story means you're a duchebag and one day you'll get yours. Oh, and I'm also not making any money from this story.**

**Also, this is based on an alternate timeline that begins with the end of the One Year War and continues on to 0084 (because I felt that sounded like a good year) and ignores the events of Stardust Memory.**

**Chapter I  
Olympic Base**

_ The year is 0079 of the Universal Century, and the One Year War is drawing to an end. At the Battle of A Baoa Qu, the forces of the Earth Federation begin to penetrate the inner most defenses of the Principality of Zeon's final stronghold, while treason and patricide tear up the Principality's inner circle. It is into this environment that the Nexus returns._

_ Launched over a decade ago, Nexus was a space colony built with a vastly more powerful reactor and drive system so that it could function like a massive spaceship. This enabled it to travel far beyond the Earth Sphere and seek out the resources Zeon was being denied by the Federation's sanctions. Launched at a time when war was still off the table for the Principality's leadership, it's commander was Lieutenant Devin Zabi, a distant cousin of Zeon's ruling family and an absolute fanatic for their cause. Far more significant, however, was the presence of Augustus Kolia , a Newtype and possibly the smartest human being ever to live. His innovations gave birth to the Nexus, and his skills enabled the team to discover sources of valuable materials in parts of Mars and the asteroid belt that others might have missed. Aboard Nexus, Kolia would discover six new elements not on the periodic table, develop methods for manipulating metals to create new forms of lightweight armor, and invent the first nuclear fusion reactor, a machine far more powerful than traditional nuclear fission._

_ Out further than any human being had ever been, communication between Nexus and the Earth Sphere was limited. Nevertheless, Lieutenant Zabi was aware that the war had broken out, and that it was taking a far greater toll on Zeon than had previously been anticipated. Based on this, Nexus's original mission timeframe was cut short, and using significant enhancements to its drive system developed during the journey by Kolia it was able to return to the Earth Sphere in record time. The closer it got, the more communication the commander had with the Zeon leadership, and the more he realized that they were going to lose the war. Determined to prevent that from happening, Zabi and Kolia prepared a plan to turn things around, to inflict so much damage on the Federation that they would be doomed to annihilation regardless of the result at A Baoa Qu..._

Ensign Zeke Elman felt like his brain was about to explode as the klaxon roused him from his sleep. Falling out of bed, he scrambled around his quarters to grab his clothes and was out the door before he even had them on. All around him Olympic Base was alive, personnel racing to their battle stations through the irregular, poorly aligned corridors of the various compartments of this makeshift facility.

_Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..._ The words raced through Zeke's mind as he reached the elevator, the strength of his will staying his shaking hands. He'd graduated from the academy three days ago, and the orbital refueling station of the Earth Defense Force was his first posting. An easy posting, allegedly, because Zeon was supposed to have pulled all its combat troops back to A Baoa Qu. So what the hell was going on here.

The elevator reached level 7, and Zeke burst through the doors as soon as they opened. He had to reach the mobile suit bay, had to get his unit at battle readiness now. Already the checklist was running through his mind: gear, oxygen, check fuel, check...

In an instant the whole station seemed to explode. The sound was deafening, and the deck shook so violently Zeke was thrown into the ceiling, where he found himself staying. _They hit the..._ Behind him the elevator disappeared, and he could see stars. He barely had any time to panic before he went flying down the corridor, the force of the escaping atmosphere propelling him towards the hull breach. He reached around for something, anything to grab a hold of, but there was nothing.

"Get up!" A strong hand on his shoulder shook Zeke awake. His body ached, and he felt blood drip from his chin, but he still silently thanked the now-sealed bulkhead doors in front of him for still being alive. It was then that he realized he was floating.

"Jason?" he gasped, wiping away the blood and turning to the man tugging on him. Ensign Jason Vermer gave him a shake.

"Come on! This whole station is about to go down. Move your ass!" And with that Michael began to unceremoniously drag Zeke down the corridor.

"Wha- This isn't the way to the Mobile Suit Bay," Zeke said as his mind began to clear again. "And the gravity..."

"The primary bay was destroyed in the first volley, along with the gravity stabilizer. Last I heard before it went was that Bravo and Delta squads had made it out. The boss is pulling every available pilot down to the secondary to get into the fight with them. He told me to find you personally."

"What does Major Walker want with me?" Vermer was silent for a moment.

"We've lost a third of the station already, including command. Captain O'Leary is in charge now."

They flew around the corner, Zeke having recovered enough by now to move under his own power. Ahead of them was the secondary mobile suit bay, a place the young ensign had only been to once. _Oh no._ The Captain's personal request for him was finally starting to make sense.

The scene in the bay was chaotic. Pilots and engineers were flying every which way, Mobile Suits were launching as soon as they were decoupled, and he was shocked they weren't running into each other on the way out.

"Ensign Vermer, 325 is all ready for you. Go!" As Jason headed for his unit, Captain Michael O'Leary, his bright red mane colored gray by dirt and debris, floated over and gripped Zeke's hand tightly. "Thank god you didn't make it to the bay. You know your mother would kill me if anything happened to you."

"Yeah, but Michael, I don't know if I'm ready to..."

"Zeke, you're a Newtype and you've spent a thousand hours in the NT-7's simulator. You're ready, man."

"You yourself said the simulator is nothing like the real thing," Zeke protested

"Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk, man. And if we are going to make it through this I'm going to need you out there." The younger man grimaced, but finally nodded. "Good. Now Zeon snuck a strike force in here and we didn't see them 'till they were right on top of us. Did something with Earth's gravity well, blinded the few monitoring stations we still have. Our guys can handle the Mobile Suits, but it's the carrier ship I'm worried about. It's practically as big as a colony, and based on the telemetry I got before command was wiped out it's gonna blow right past us and plow into North America."

"North America?" Zeke was dumbstruck. "Where?"

"Cincinnati," Michael grimly. "That's why I need you out there. You can push past their lines and hopefully get inside and blow up that ship. Because we _can't_ lose North America. We won't be able to survive that." His stomach all ice, Zeke nodded.

"Alright, now get..." The station rocked violently again. "Get to the suit, now!" The Captain pushed off a flying piece of debris and propelled himself across the room, and after another second Zeke did the same. It didn't take him long to find it. Unlike the other suits in the room, this one did not have bright colors. The NT-7 was designed for stealth.

Redirecting in mid-flight, he pulled himself into the cockpit and closed the hatch. For a moment Zeke just stared at the console in front of him, a chill running down his spine as he realized the magnitude of what he was about to do. Flipping the master switch, he could almost feel the electricity as the suit powered up around him for the first time. The preflight checklist was cut short; there wasn't enough time. Breaking away from the wall, he saw that almost every other suit had been boarded and launched. Taking one final deep breath, Zeke fired up the NT-7's massive engines, unfurled the four stabilization fins, and blasted out into space.

**End of Chapter I**

**A/N: First of all, how do you spell vernie, vernee, venee, etc. It's the name they used in the shows for the big engines on the back of the Mobile Suits.**

**Second, if you liked this story review, or else I won't write any more.**


	2. The Gundams

**Chapter II  
"The Gundams"**

**A/N: Thanks Gryphon Turboclaw for pointing out my mistake in choosing a category.**

**Also, I rewrote some parts of Chapter I. Not that much, but I re-worked some of the character interactions so it's worth reading again.**

_ Earth. A planet once lush and rich, now devastated by a long and brutal war. The thermonuclear onslaught at the opening days of the conflict had devastated its surface, and the ensuing ground war brought the planet to the point where the surviving population faced a massive shortage of the resources needed to survive. Most critical in the final days of 0079 was the food supply. The wide open plains of Europe, Africa, and so many other regions of the world had been wiped out, the soil so contaminated that it was impossible to grow anything there._

_ The exception was North America, and the city of Cincinnati, home to the Federation's most advanced biological research lab. Throughout the war, this lab had changed hands over and over again, but the value of its equipment and its research team was not lost on the leadership of both sides, who were acutely aware of the impending shortages. Because of this constant changing in who controlled the facility, scientists from both the Federation and Zeon had ended up stranded there, continuing their research for whoever was the controlling power at the time. It was here that the reclamation technology had been developed, and after Zeon had been driven off-planet, that new technology was deployed on the nearby midwestern plains. With winter reaching its peak, the genetically engineered food of this region was the only hope to prevent the people of Earth, the backbone of the Earth Federation, from starving to death._

"This is Delta Gundam, I'm deploying," Captain O'Leary announced over his comm as he powered up his Mobile Suit and blasted out into space. Instantly he found himself in a hail of fire as Zakus and GMs dogfighted all around him. _My men now._ A chill ran down his spine; he clenched his teeth. Looking around, he saw the NT-5's tactical lock-on system locating one enemy after and displaying a mountain of data about each one at a pace that made his head hurt. NewType-5 was its full name, and now he knew why. But there were at least three dozen suits moving in on the station, versus less than half that on his side. Delta was one of the most powerful weapons they had; he needed to do what he could with it

They were all around him, three dozen suits at least, versus less than half that on his side. Delta was one of the most powerful weapons they had; he needed to do what he could with it, so he picked a target and made his move.

Delta was a heavy munitions Gundam, a large, imposing figure in red and white with a plethora of built-in equipment. As it locked onto a nearby Zaku, twin 150-caliber machine guns were detached from their holsters and held firmly in each hand as they opened fire. Michael may not have been a Newtype, but he knew how to fly a Mobile Suit. The fire was spread out but held steady, and the Zeon suit had nowhere to run as it was torn apart.

_One._ Three other Zakus broke off from the main group and headed his way. He fired his main thrusters, trying to keep them from overtaking him even though Delta's power pack was unable to move the massive suit quickly; even in the vacuum of space, the Zakus were faster. Switching controls, he activated the shoulder-mounted long-range beam cannon and blasted apart one of the enemies while they were still out of range. _I took too long!_ He fired the RCS system, narrowly dodging the fire of the incoming Suits and buying enough time to switch the fire control again. The computer locked on to both Zakus at the same time, and Michael aimed each gun independently... and missed as his shots went wide. The enemies, however, were a little more accurate, and the cockpit shook as bullets slammed into Delta's heavy armor.

"Shit!" Recovering, he dropped the dual lock and focused exclusively on a single Zaku, and he blew it out of the sky. Right then its partner made a critical mistake and paused in space, probably in response to the destruction of its friend. Michael made sure it paid for that.

_Not bad._ Screw Newtype reflexes, he could do this. "All units, reform on me, wedge formation," he ordered. "We're punching through."

- - -

Epsilon Gundam, the NT-7, blasted across space, its massive engines at full blast, four broad wings fully extended, two on each side– and no one saw it. Its engines used a special fuel that kept the exhaust dim and the trail minimal, and its armor was a special carbon-titanium composite that was black and dull, blending into the depths of space and giving it a non-existed presence on radar as well as more sophisticated scanners.

In the cockpit, Zeke Elman stayed on course for the massive Zeon ship. What little telemetry Olympic Base had gained on the thing was up on his screen, and it didn't look good. The vessel had bounced off of the Earth's atmosphere in a maneuver that should've torn it apart, and now it was slowly maneuvering into a vector that would give it a collision course with North America. In Zeon's desperation they were resorting to the oldest tactic in the war, a colony drop, and if it wasn't stopped the already astronomical death toll of the war would rise drastically.

Zeke almost jumped out of his harness as the computer beeped out an alert. On the tactical display, three Zakus trailing behind the main group were coming up fast. His heart racing, he threw Epsilon into a twisted maneuver, trying to pull out of their firing range and bringing around his wings to act as giant shields against the enemy. And...

They didn't see him. They _couldn't_ see him. He let out a half-hearted burst of laughter at this realization. Taking a deep breath, he steadied his shaking hands and unfolded his wings so he could raise his beam cannon. Sitting there for a moment, he realized he didn't have a good shot, and after another second's hesitation he fired his main thrusters.

_Visibility threshold is seventy-five meters._ The words from his manual almost floated out in front of him, but he didn't even need to get that close. The tactical display lit up like a Christmas tree, reticles wrapping themselves around each enemy, data analyses flying across the screens. Zaku armor was the thickest around the cockpit and reactor, but there were four, two meter wide sections of the hip joint that were weaker, and with a single command the reticle narrowed and he squeezed off three quick shots...

The Zakus exploded, their light blinding him for a second. As it faded, he let out a loud whoop. _That was easy._ Turning the suit, he finally saw the ship on the horizon. At three-hundred klicks it still looked small, but he knew the ratios and what the telemetry had said. This thing was massive. More importantly, though, was the fact that he was still floating near the debris from those Zakus, and the Zeon commander may have noticed that they were destroyed by something he couldn't see. Firing up the engines, he blasted out across space towards his target.

_Is it dragging the debris belt with it?_ Most of the wreckage from the war that wasn't slowly falling and burning up in the Earth's atmosphere had formed a belt on the outskirts of its gravity well. It wasn't unheard of for space colonies to trap stellar objects in their gravity, and this ship was certainly that size, the force of its forward momentum shouldn't have allowed it to collect the kind of cloud that he began to see around it as he got closer. There were hundreds, possibly thousands of small objects around it, and many of them were breaking off as it flew by. Breaking off in only one direction, a wide arc course towards the Earth that no natural object could fly. A quick sensor scan was all it took, and Zeke's blood turned cold. They were simple machines, a single engine and a single beam cannon, but there were enough of them that they could do serious damage if they entered the fight. And there was something else, something he felt about them that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up...

A beam blast slammed into the back of his suit, and Zeke immediately dived into evasive maneuvers. They'd snuck up behind him somehow, a few dozen of the mobile weapons, and they were all firing. _They're good_, he realized as he returned fire. Despite the intensity of his situation, he realized where the other unit was going. What they were going to do.

"Michael, listen to me they're coming for you..."

- - -

"...they're coming for you. You're about to get overrun!" Zeke's panicked voice came over the comm just as Michael blew away yet another Zaku. The battle was beginning to shift, the coordinated power of his Gundam and the GMs had broken the enemy formation. They were still outnumbered, but the Zakus were scattered and his men were still together, and that made the playing field a little more even, to the point where he was beginning to think they just might pull this off. And then Zeke called, and he knew shit was about to hit the fan.

"What are you..." A massive explosion behind him cut off what he was going to say, as what was left of Olympic Base erupted in a fireball, and out of the fire came a mass of tiny objects. Their beam fire blew away three GMs before any of them knew what was going on. "All units, break formation, break formation!" he shouted. _Shit..._

**End of Chapter II**

**A/N: I'm not a physicist, so all the physics I talked about in this chapter are made up. **

**iRemember, REVIEW!!! if you want more.**


	3. The Commander and The Genius

**Chapter III  
"The Commander and The Genius"**

Nexus's command deck was a massive room. It took six men working in tandem just steer her, one for each of the powerful drive systems. After that there were the engineering monitors, the navigators, the environmental controllers – there were almost too many of those to count – and the tactical officers. And at the center of it all, on a massive throne chair filled with enough displays and controls to monitor what was going on at every other station, was Lieutenant Devin Zabi, his wild black hair framing a furious expression of concentration.

"Akko, move seven to quadrant three to reinforce our flank. Daeken, pull back eight and have them regroup with what's left of two. Williams, watch out where you're guiding six, they're flying into a trap. Jacobi..." The orders flowed from his mouth as he kept close tabs on the battle, on his soldiers that were out there dying for him. _And for their country._

Before he had left with Nexus, Devin had scored in the top three percentile of his combat tactics class. His uncle Degwin, just a few months after he took control of the Principality, had pushed him into it. _You are a Zabi!_ the imposing man had shouted at him. _War is coming, and you will serve your part._ Three days later Devin accidently let it slip to the press that he was seeking command of the Nexus mission, and the idea became viral within a day. The media had been eating the project up for weeks as the last best hope to break the blockade and avoid war. They loved the idea of a Zabi in charge, and the public agreed. For Degwin's part, by the time things got that far he had already decided that he was better off being rid of him, and just like that Devin was off the front lines. He didn't have to kill anyone, and no one had to die for him. The far reaches of space was the only truly peaceful place left in the universe, and he was happy there. That all changed one month ago.

_"The Federation has taken the upper hand."_ A personal message from his cousin, Kycilia, had come unexpectedly with their regular report on the status of the war. From the moment he began watching it, Devin felt the blood drain out of him. _"They've wiped out our Earth Assault Force, and their rebuilt Space Force has destroyed all our orbital positions. Our remaining forces are regrouping at Solomon and Grenada, but while those positions are strong the Federation's new weapons may be stronger. Mobile Suits, more powerful than our own, have been deployed on the battlefield and have consistently turned the tide of every engagement. My father is still confident that we can defeat them, but I..."_ She trailed off, the color draining from her face. _"Please, cousin. If nothing else, I know you believe in Zeon. You know what the Federation will do to our people if they win this war. We need you, and we will all welcome you home, even Degwin. Loosing Garma and Dozzle has changed him, he's not the man you once knew. You have the opportunity to save your country and your family. Please do not forsake us."_

Devin hadn't gotten any sleep that night, the revelations he'd just received tearing up his mind. Thoughts of Zum City burning, of the Zeon population placed into virtual bondage by the "reparation" demands the Federation was certain to make of them. But most of all, he thought of his uncle. It made sense for Kycilia to call, and not him. She was the one who had always defended him, the only member of his family who had accepted him. A brutal fire had claimed the life of both Devin's parents and Degwin's wife, the three souls wiped out in an instant. In many ways, Devin felt that Degwin blamed him for what happened; the man certainly had always treated him with scorn. Devin worked twice as hard as any of his cousins, yet his uncle would berate him while praising them. It was painful, it made him resentful of the elder man.

Yet deep down, Devin knew how much he owed him. Despite everything else, Degwin had taken him in and raised him in his household. He'd given Devin a first-class education, and it was only through his connections to Degwin that the young Zabi had gotten the command of Nexus, a mission that had proven beyond fulfilling. He owed him, he owed them all.

But war? Maybe it was the way he'd been treated by his uncle that had created an aversion to conflict that no one else in his family had. His time in the military academy had proven that God had gifted him with extraordinary skills, talents for battle that outstripped most others, capabilities that he ironically had no desire for. Maybe that's why he had them, he had mused one night. Put the weapons in the hands of the one who will not use them. But now, though, now he found himself thinking like he was back in Advanced Tactics. He brought up Nexus's capabilities on his computer, and studied them not for the scientific value they possessed but for what uses they might have in a battle. The more he read, the more frightened he became, because he really _could_ make a difference. The potential was there, if he chose to embrace it.

"Daeken, issue a general scatter order. That enemy phalanx is trying to break our lines. Let them. Akko, Jacobi, organize two new squadrons out of the scattered troops and counterattack, pincer formation." He had embraced it. For better or for worse, he was right in the middle of it.

- - -

Death was beautiful. Of course, to a Newtype, every aspect of life was beautiful. Once the mind had been trained to properly observe it, the life energy every human being gave off was absolutely magnificent to observe. But when the body finally perished, and the life force was absorbed back into the great pool of energy that was the universe, to August Kolia that was a downright religious experience.

Kolia saw the universe different than most humans, or even most Newtypes. A decade on the fringes of space, studying the tiniest elements, had honed a focus that he doubted anyone else had ever achieved. He could see the very fabric of reality, and as such knew how truly unique human kind was, and how insignificant it was. To have that kind of energy, the power of consciousness, inside a single being, a life form no less, was the ultimate rarity. Yet when compared to the energy of a pulsar and a black hole, or even the fire of a planet's core, human beings were mere abstractions, no more important than anything else.

In that context, the war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon was meaningless. Whoever won, the universe wouldn't blink an eye. All human beings were its children, and its loving parenting was absolute and did not respect man-made borders. Yet for Kolia, they _were_ different. Zeon had embraced space, had embraced the promise of connecting with a greater universal whole. They hadn't done this completely or consciously, for that matter, but they were beginning to understand the true potential that lay in the treasures around them. Certainly the Nexus crew, that had journeyed far beyond the Red Line into realms unknown, had developed a pool of knowledge that when presented to the rest of the Principality would set them down the right path.

The Federation, however, was still trapped in the old ways, the ways of the parasite. It consumed without thought for what it was taking away. It had strangled the Earth, the beautiful, magnificent Earth, long before this war had brutalized her surface. And now it was tearing apart space as well, obliterating everything that didn't fit into their narrow world view.

And so Kolia had built it, the first living machine. It's circuitry fine-tuned, and made out of a metal compound they'd discovered on Phobos, it was as fast and sensitive as the human brain itself. Which was important, because a human brain was at its core. Kolia's brain, to be precise. When his mind was hooked into the computer – which he called Solaris – his normally vast Newtype perceptions became virtually limitless. He could "see" for miles in his mind's eye, and not in the tradition vision sense. He could see into everything and everyone. He knew it all, instantly.

And then there was control. Smaller units, built with the same circuitry as Solaris, had been built on the journey back. Except for their extremely sophisticated computer, they were as primitive as they come, a beam cannon, a thrust engine, and a handful of RCS verniers. Their strength, however, lay in numbers... and his ability to control each one of them simultaneously. Each one of the two hundred machines was like a finger on his hand; he controlled them effortlessly as they moved across the battlefield. He made them dance...

The plan he had worked out with Lieutenant Zabi involved deploying the GunSats early and sending them around the Earth to come up behind the Federation defenders. But Kolia held half of them back, a hundred mobile weapons to deal with a single Mobile Suit. Already he knew that this suit was powerful; its stealth system alone, which kept it invisible to all those without Kolia's enhanced perceptions, made it a force to be reckoned with. But the pilot was what really consumed him. He was a Newtype too, his mind radiating with power, vast amounts of power, more so than he'd ever seen in anyone. Despite this extraordinary gift, this young man hadn't developed and honed his skills like Kolia had, but the fact that he even had so much untapped potential gave the scientist pause. Dealing with Newtypes was always difficult, the unpredictable nature of their powers a constant threat. Nevertheless, no matter how powerful this young pilot might be, he was in over his head. Kolia began to move his units to box the Mobile Suit in; soon he'd be destroyed and the mission would continue unhindered.

_My fingers are all around you, kid,_ he thought. _Time to close my fist._

**End of Chapter III**

**A/N: Well, this chapter was a philosophical one, but I feel it's important to have villains with real motivations driving them. Backstories will continue to be delved into as the battle unfolds. But most importantly of all, I WANT REVIEWS!!! I'm sorry to be so demanding, but I love hearing what my readers thing, and it's frustrating not getting any feedback. So write some more reviews damnit. If I'm spending hours writing this thing, the least you all can do is take a few seconds to leave your comments on it.**


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